Venting I hate myself more than anyone can conceive

[somedude123]

Sigh... where to begin? First off this is my first post, and despite that it will be very long, because I have a lot to get off of my chest. I guess I should start by giving some background information that will be important for explaining why I feel the way I do.

First things first: i am a high functioning autistic, which is a problem for me for multiple reasons I'll touch upon later on.
Secondly, I'm more or less the stereotypical "kid who is called gifted by everyone around him but later on in life realizes he's not so gifted" person. This has lead to a lot of self-esteem issues and contributes to my overall self-hate.
Three, just like a lot of other people, I've had my fair share of bullying and abuse growing up that deep down made me resent a lot of humanity and contributed not only to my self-hate but also toward my pessimistic and almost nihilistic view on life.

Seems like a lot of the typical same ol' problems that you've probably heard before. So what's the big deal? My biggest problem is my autism and the lack of empathy that stems from it. I've had this particular issue throughout my whole life, however recently I've done some introspection and have realized a few things.

I've never had a genuine connection with anyone in my life. See not only can I not empathize but I can't feel love either. Not familial, not platonic, not even romantic. I've never gave a damn about anyone besides myself and have never really been bothered by it. This has also led me to do some morally questionable, if not outright immoral actions which I'll refrain from going into explicit detail over for a multitude of reasons.

Something else I've realized is that I'm average at best at pretty much any aspect of my life. Don't have any talents, average intelligence, not very athletic, etc.
So here I am, with borderline sociopathic levels of empathy (basically none) and I have no redeeming qualities to make up for it. I have nothing to contribute to society and even if I did I'd probably find a way to make it all about me.

So all things considered, this has left me with a two part conclusion that leaves me with nothing but contempt for myself and wanting to CTB:
1. I am a heartless monster that does not deserve to consume the resources that other people need to survive. I have nothing to contribute to this world and no one that cares about me (or vice versa.) So the point in me living would only be for self-gratification, something I can temporarily have but something I can never truly have because
2. I've realized that some people were never born to be happy or have a good life. I've always wondered what it's like to care about or even love someone. It always seemed so alien to me and seemed like a concept I'd never grasp and an objective I'd never reach. A metaphorical carrot on a stick, something I'd always wanted but chasing that goal would be futile, because as far as I can see, it's impossible.

So taking this conclusion into account, I've realized that I'll never achieve happiness, and never really deserved it anyway. And the only thing I deserve for being who I am is a slow painful death.

So I've devised a method which is a little unorthodox, but only because I deserve to suffer. I don't believe in life after death, however if hell exists, I'd gladly accept my stay there for all eternity, to atone for my sins and also because someone like me deserves it regardless of what I've done.

TL;DR: Im an autist with no empathy and have done some stuff in the past. I can't love or empathize with anyone so I have nothing to really live for except myself, but I hate myself and have no redeeming qualities like talents or intelligence to really give my life meaning and something that can make me happy. So therefore I hate myself even more and will CTB in a brutal and painful way as a result of this self-hatred.

 

[Deleted member 14573]

I'm sorry you feel that happiness is impossible for you. All I can say is that you are not the only one who is going through something like this.

I am concerned that you want to kill yourself with a brutal method. You said that you have committed some immoral actions and you feel undeserving of anything. Regardless of what you have done in the past, you still deserve a second chance and compassion. Actually you have reflected a lot on your actions and seem to be self-aware. Even if you feel you will never achieve happiness you certainly deserve it, as well all do.

I do hope you reconsider this choice for something that is more peaceful, if you decide to ctb. And I hope you stick around for a while .

 

[smile418]

So I've read the entire thing and one thing seems very clear to me: You are a more caring person than 99% of society. You write in every sentence how much you don't want to be a bother to society. Why not? F*** society. What have they ever done to you? Certainly not much. Bully you, abuse you, force you into something you are not to be a perfect working machine for them and in the end when you try to end it all they make it as hard as possible to keep you paying taxes and buying useless shit. You have done some questionable shit? So what? Who hasn't? Certainly society as a whole is far from perfect. Society itself only does things to make itself prosper, society itself is a sociopath. No entity really cares about anything about anything else if it would mean their own demise.
You say you resent humanity but at the same time you don't want to hurt it by any means like consuming their resources. I'm sorry to say but this doesn't make any sense. Ultimately there is only your own experience. Everyone and everything else doesn't matter. Do only the things that make you happy. If feeling pain makes you happy then do so. If you feel like doing anything else even if it does not contribute to society then do so.
You talk about not being very talented or smart or strong but guess what, you don't have to be any of that to be happy. Sure society would love you if you were all these things but it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Since you want to contribute to society so badly there are many ways to do so without having to be a superhero. At this point you would probably say you will find a way to make it about yourself. Good. Hopefully you find it in yourself to think about you just for a second.
You assume that you don't deserve happiness. But who gets to to decide that? Did God himself tell you?
If you are certain that your own death is what makes you the happiest then let no one keep you from it. If you have tried everything to make yourself happy and found that truly nothing works then do it but please don't do it because of society or for anyone else.
I would love to pm you but you about that don't have enough messages yet.

 

[somedude123]

So I've read the entire thing and one thing seems very clear to me: You are a more caring person than 99% of society. You write in every sentence how much you don't want to be a bother to society. Why not? F*** society. What have they ever done to you? Certainly not much. Bully you, abuse you, force you into something you are not to be a perfect working machine for them and in the end when you try to end it all they make it as hard as possible to keep you paying taxes and buying useless shit. You have done some questionable shit? So what? Who hasn't? Certainly society as a whole is far from perfect. Society itself only does things to make itself prosper, society itself is a sociopath. No entity really cares about anything about anything else if it would mean their own demise.
You say you resent humanity but at the same time you don't want to hurt it by any means like consuming their resources. I'm sorry to say but this doesn't make any sense. Ultimately there is only your own experience. Everyone and everything else doesn't matter. Do only the things that make you happy. If feeling pain makes you happy then do so. If you feel like doing anything else even if it does not contribute to society then do so.
You talk about not being very talented or smart or strong but guess what, you don't have to be any of that to be happy. Sure society would love you if you were all these things but it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Since you want to contribute to society so badly there are many ways to do so without having to be a superhero. At this point you would probably say you will find a way to make it about yourself. Good. Hopefully you find it in yourself to think about you just for a second.
You assume that you don't deserve happiness. But who gets to to decide that? Did God himself tell you?
If you are certain that your own death is what makes you the happiest then let no one keep you from it. If you have tried everything to make yourself happy and found that truly nothing works then do it but please don't do it because of society or for anyone else.
I would love to pm you but you about that don't have enough messages yet.

Ok, I feel like you've misinterpreted some things so I'm going to try and correct some misconceptions so you along with whoever views this has 100% clarity about what im talking about.

"you are a more caring person than 99% of society"
hard doubt. Sure there are a lot of evil people and sickos in this world. But im sure more than half of the human population has a least 1 person or at least a pet that they cherish. I dont have even that

"You write in every sentence how much you don't want to be a bother to society. Why not? F*** society. What have they ever done to you? Certainly not much. Bully you, abuse you, force you into something you are not to be a perfect working machine for them and in the end when you try to end it all they make it as hard as possible to keep you paying taxes and buying useless shit."

I don't think I'm a bother to society, I just think the world would be better off without me. People haven't done a whole lot of good for me that's true but that's irrelevant to how I feel. I've never payed taxes or bought anything for myself so that last bit doesn't apply to me.

"You have done some questionable shit? So what? Who hasn't?"
If I told you some of the sadistic shit I've done you would be agreeing with me atm. That's also not a "so what" I can't just shrug off things I've done that I should probably have gone to jail for like all I did was some harmless prank that hurt no one. i dont know many people who have done the things I've done so probably a lot of people who haven't.

"You say you resent humanity but at the same time you don't want to hurt it by any means like consuming their resources. I'm sorry to say but this doesn't make any sense"

Probably the biggest misconception out of the whole response. So I'll clarify a little bit:
My resentment towards humanity has nothing to do with not wanting to consume it's resources. See I'm a little overobsessive with being efficient and optimal. If my existence as a whole provides negative utility to humanity as a whole that urks me. If I'm of no use and can't be an asset or at least a net zero in terms of what my life brings into this world versus what it requires to sustain itself, then the logical solution is simply remove myself from that system.

"
You talk about not being very talented or smart or strong but guess what, you don't have to be any of that to be happy. Sure society would love you if you were all these things but it really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Since you want to contribute to society so badly there are many ways to do so without having to be a superhero. At this point you would probably say you will find a way to make it about yourself. Good. Hopefully you find it in yourself to think about you just for a second"

Well in a vacuum no I don't need any of those things to be happy. But we don't live in a black and white world with zero context. I stated that my wanting to be talented or smart has to do with me having some sort of redeeming quality that kind of balances out me being an unempathetic monster and thus I hate myself for being this way. If I'm not happy with myself, have no plans or means to improve myself, and have no one else to live for, what's the point then? I cant be happy in a world like that. Also I think about myself quite regularly so no problems there.

" You
assume that you don't deserve happiness. But who gets to to decide that? Did God himself tell you?
If you are certain that your own death is what makes you the happiest then let no one keep you from it. If you have tried everything to make yourself happy and found that truly nothing works then do it but please don't do it because of society or for anyone else"

I mean i think i determine that right? Who else would be the arbiter of my self-worth and by extension what i deserve. Don't believe in a god or gods so can't be them. I don't share the sentiment that I deserve some sort of participation trophy just for existing and I dont think i'm obligated to live a happy life regardless of my merits. so it can't be that the deservedness of happiness is inherent to me either. I don't think death will make me happy because for all i know i wont be able to experience anything post-mortem. but as i said i dont deserve happiness anyway. I have tried and nothing really makes me happy in this empty world so death seems like the best option. I'm more or less doing it for both society and me so it's a win-win or a lose-lose I guess? Either way discussing in pms would be great once I can.

 

[Hopeindeath!]

I noticed you are new here, and I would like to welcome you. Your post made me sad because of your autism, and the way it causes you to have a terrible life. I wish I could make things better for you.

 

[smile418]

Firstly and most importantly I want to say that all of your emotions and ways you see the world are completely valid. I just happen to see things a little differently and think it could maybe benefit you. If you disagree and don't want me to respond to you feel free to block me.

On the topic on caring for others. This is a very counter intuitive thought and it took me a long while to realize it. People don't care about anything but themselves. Even if they do things that superficially benefit others they ultimately do it for themselves. If they feed their pet then it's because they want to feel the emotional comfort of their pet. If they volunteer in the soup kitchen then they do it because they feel good about being a 'good' person. You on the other hand would literally kill yourself because the world would be better without you.

At this point I would like to share facts about myself for you not to be confused about the kind of person that I am. I have pets. I volunteer. I try to help people as much that is possible for me. And I also definitely want to kill myself but I am currently waiting for my SN. Feel free to ask me anything about myself that you want to know.

Small economy lesson on the side on the side. Consuming resources on the local marked benefits it because a lot of local businesses are involved in this consumption process. So even if you don't directly pay taxes your area still benefits to a degree from the consumption.

I fully agree with you that dealing with your past mistakes is an extremely daunting task. For me as well but it does not seem like this is the main reason for you wanting to cbt. Correct me if I am wrong.

Your value calculation seems to be of bigger importance to you. First of all this is a very difficult calculation to make which is very prone to errors. One can easily ignore all the positive effects one has on the world like for example right now you are providing me with value because I enjoy having this conversation with you.
More importantly though, assuming you are of age, you have already consumed a very large amount of resources. If you stop now your life will indeed have been a net negative (assuming your calculation is correct in the first place). But if you try and better yourself or at least superficially help people then eventually your life will have neutral value. If you really care that much about the systems integrity then logically you owe us to try your best. And ending it would me you can never pay back your "debts". (This does not make me anti-choice btw because I am arguing from within the set of rules that you have provided me which I disagree with.)

On to the biggest problem of all lacking self worth. As opposed to the value that you hold in regard to society the value that you hold about yourself cannot be logically argued away. Like I said I am pro choice and if you really tried to be happy and failed then go ahead. Just consider making your exit not painful especially because these methods often are prone to fail and have immense consequences for your life after that.

If you want to talk in PMs I recommend the games in off-topic like the counting game because that can get your message-count up easily.

 

[somedude123]

Firstly and most importantly I want to say that all of your emotions and ways you see the world are completely valid. I just happen to see things a little differently and think it could maybe benefit you. If you disagree and don't want me to respond to you feel free to block me.

On the topic on caring for others. This is a very counter intuitive thought and it took me a long while to realize it. People don't care about anything but themselves. Even if they do things that superficially benefit others they ultimately do it for themselves. If they feed their pet then it's because they want to feel the emotional comfort of their pet. If they volunteer in the soup kitchen then they do it because they feel good about being a 'good' person. You on the other hand would literally kill yourself because the world would be better without you.

At this point I would like to share facts about myself for you not to be confused about the kind of person that I am. I have pets. I volunteer. I try to help people as much that is possible for me. And I also definitely want to kill myself but I am currently waiting for my SN. Feel free to ask me anything about myself that you want to know.

Small economy lesson on the side on the side. Consuming resources on the local marked benefits it because a lot of local businesses are involved in this consumption process. So even if you don't directly pay taxes your area still benefits to a degree from the consumption.

I fully agree with you that dealing with your past mistakes is an extremely daunting task. For me as well but it does not seem like this is the main reason for you wanting to cbt. Correct me if I am wrong.

Your value calculation seems to be of bigger importance to you. First of all this is a very difficult calculation to make which is very prone to errors. One can easily ignore all the positive effects one has on the world like for example right now you are providing me with value because I enjoy having this conversation with you.
More importantly though, assuming you are of age, you have already consumed a very large amount of resources. If you stop now your life will indeed have been a net negative (assuming your calculation is correct in the first place). But if you try and better yourself or at least superficially help people then eventually your life will have neutral value. If you really care that much about the systems integrity then logically you owe us to try your best. And ending it would me you can never pay back your "debts". (This does not make me anti-choice btw because I am arguing from within the set of rules that you have provided me which I disagree with.)

On to the biggest problem of all lacking self worth. As opposed to the value that you hold in regard to society the value that you hold about yourself cannot be logically argued away. Like I said I am pro choice and if you really tried to be happy and failed then go ahead. Just consider making your exit not painful especially because these methods often are prone to fail and have immense consequences for your life after that.

If you want to talk in PMs I recommend the games in off-topic like the counting game because that can get your message-count up easily.

hey man I don't want to block you. I'm not very good with my words and socializing in general so if I come off as rude and aggressive in my response then I want to inform you that I didn't mean to come off that way. I'm just a very blunt and direct person. Blocking someone over a simple disagreement is very uncharacteristic of me and overall unproductive anyway since part of the reason I came here is to find people I relate with and maybe receive advice from.

On your second point I agree quite easily. Although i have 2 comments on it. Firstly, it's not really about whether the need or motivation to care about others is ultimately driven by if it benefits me or not in the end. Because that's already how I view people in general. It's about the feeling of caring about others that I'm missing out on. That feeling of "doing good" for good's sake and deriving joy from that. How I view people now is basically if they serve a purpose for me then I use them, otherwise ignore them or get revenge on those who wrong me, with no regard or guilt to what I've done no matter how cruel it might've been. 2. Not ALL actions are necessarily selfish. someone can be extremely altruistic to someone they really care about or love to the point that they'd sacrifice their life to protect them. Sure that drive to protect comes from within, from the self, but at the end of the day you gain nothing by dying for someone, they're the only ones to benefit from said action. You can't necessarily say someone is doing that only for themselves can you?

I'm already well aware about the economy bit, however I think that's an extremely small and pretty much negligible impact on the world. Me buying stuff from local supermarkets when there's thousands of consumers in the same area buying the same shit is not something to be proud of.

You are incorrect about the past mistakes part. I feel no remorse for anything I've done, it's just that I know looking from a moral standpoint that what I've done is wrong. I'm capable of having morals it's just that getting my actions to align with my morals instead of with my wants is a problem with me. However I believe just my lack of empathy and any other positive trait is the biggest problem for me.

Well good that you enjoy our conversation, I guess. As for your assessment of my logic, I still think there's some misunderstanding here so let me clarify further. I agree that ending my life prematurely would be bad if I leave without paying my "debts" so to speak. However this assumes that I have sort of potential to do good that I haven't actualized yet. I disagree with this implication simply by virtue of me having no redeeming qualities. You are right in that this calculation is hard however it's not really a calculation and more of a precaution. I foresee no future in which I'm good enough to live and bring more to the table than what I take from it. Simple arithmetic really. If my existence decrements the utility counter by one for say, every day I exist, and I have no potential to increment that counter in the foreseeable future, and my goal is to keep that counter as high as possible, then logically speaking to remove myself from existence would be the solution to reaching that goal.

As for ctb, I'm very adamant on making my exit as painful as physically possible, as for whether I succeed or not, I'm confident I will but as with most things in life I will definitely take some precautionary measures to ensure my demise. Not to sound rude or or defensive, but I think you simply don't understand how much I disgust and loathe myself. I simply just want to inflict pain on myself, just as many people would like to inflict pain on others due to their hatred. It's the same way for me but that hatred and desire to inflict suffering is all directed towards myself.

Maybe we can continue to talk in private, I guess I can try to rack up some messages so we can, cya then.

 

[smile418]

hey man I don't want to block you. I'm not very good with my words and socializing in general so if I come off as rude and aggressive in my response then I want to inform you that I didn't mean to come off that way. I'm just a very blunt and direct person. Blocking someone over a simple disagreement is very uncharacteristic of me and overall unproductive anyway since part of the reason I came here is to find people I relate with and maybe receive advice from.

On your second point I agree quite easily. Although i have 2 comments on it. Firstly, it's not really about whether the need or motivation to care about others is ultimately driven by if it benefits me or not in the end. Because that's already how I view people in general. It's about the feeling of caring about others that I'm missing out on. That feeling of "doing good" for good's sake and deriving joy from that. How I view people now is basically if they serve a purpose for me then I use them, otherwise ignore them or get revenge on those who wrong me, with no regard or guilt to what I've done no matter how cruel it might've been. 2. Not ALL actions are necessarily selfish. someone can be extremely altruistic to someone they really care about or love to the point that they'd sacrifice their life to protect them. Sure that drive to protect comes from within, from the self, but at the end of the day you gain nothing by dying for someone, they're the only ones to benefit from said action. You can't necessarily say someone is doing that only for themselves can you?

I'm already well aware about the economy bit, however I think that's an extremely small and pretty much negligible impact on the world. Me buying stuff from local supermarkets when there's thousands of consumers in the same area buying the same shit is not something to be proud of.

You are incorrect about the past mistakes part. I feel no remorse for anything I've done, it's just that I know looking from a moral standpoint that what I've done is wrong. I'm capable of having morals it's just that getting my actions to align with my morals instead of with my wants is a problem with me. However I believe just my lack of empathy and any other positive trait is the biggest problem for me.

Well good that you enjoy our conversation, I guess. As for your assessment of my logic, I still think there's some misunderstanding here so let me clarify further. I agree that ending my life prematurely would be bad if I leave without paying my "debts" so to speak. However this assumes that I have sort of potential to do good that I haven't actualized yet. I disagree with this implication simply by virtue of me having no redeeming qualities. You are right in that this calculation is hard however it's not really a calculation and more of a precaution. I foresee no future in which I'm good enough to live and bring more to the table than what I take from it. Simple arithmetic really. If my existence decrements the utility counter by one for say, every day I exist, and I have no potential to increment that counter in the foreseeable future, and my goal is to keep that counter as high as possible, then logically speaking to remove myself from existence would be the solution to reaching that goal.

As for ctb, I'm very adamant on making my exit as painful as physically possible, as for whether I succeed or not, I'm confident I will but as with most things in life I will definitely take some precautionary measures to ensure my demise. Not to sound rude or or defensive, but I think you simply don't understand how much I disgust and loathe myself. I simply just want to inflict pain on myself, just as many people would like to inflict pain on others due to their hatred. It's the same way for me but that hatred and desire to inflict suffering is all directed towards myself.

Maybe we can continue to talk in private, I guess I can try to rack up some messages so we can, cya then.

First of all I am glad that you are (still) talking to me. I wrote the blocking thing because I thought that maybe I could come across as rude. I didn't feel like you were rude at all.

The self-sacrifice is an interesting edge case. I would like to divide it into 2 categories.
Firstly the intuitive act like when a soldier jumps on a grenade to save his comrade. In this case I would contend that he is not doing an extensive calculation of all the outcomes, pros and cons for himself and other, rather he just feels like doing it so he does it. I would call this self-serving because he does the thing that HE feels like doing in the moment.
Secondly the more interesting case is the calculated act like the Japanese workers that went into Fukushima to minimize the negative effects of the catastrophe. I thought long about why they were doing what they were doing. I found that probably they were doing it mostly because of their great cultural sense of honor (as opposed to places like the US where such an act would occur much much rarer). Maybe they believed in the idea of karma. Maybe they also wanted the ones that remained like for example their children to live in a better world. The last reason of course being the most interesting. They certainly didn't feel bad about what they have done in the days that they had remaining. Sure it probably physically hurt like hell but they knew what they were getting themselves into. Chances are they didn't have any regrets. They did what THEY felt like they have to.
Everyone has free will and no one uses that to consciously act against their own self-interest. Even if you look into acts that have immediate great benefits to those around the actor and for himself it may even cost his life but he will never feel like he truly shouldn't do it. If you look one layer deeper any act has to come out of self-interest, because it has to otherwise the act would never have been realized.
It's fine if you disagree, I would have as well for the majority of my life but it's a somewhat sad truth.

To understand this easier you have to look at what the actors are FEELING not at what is the ultimate outcome. That being said I certainly am somewhere on the spectrum as well but oftentimes it helps to see things in a different way to what comes naturally to oneself.

I have to admit I don't really understand how you are feeling on the subject on your morality. Is it past or future actions that concern you?

You are speaking in a lot of absolute terms when I think you would agree that the future is not realized yet and therefore has to be talked about in a probabilistic manner. You say that you have no redeeming qualities but it is not about what you are right now but about what you can be in the future. If we accept this point of view that means that your expected future value is not 0 and therefore it matters a lot how little resources you are in fact consuming (expected_future_value - future_consumption_of_resources). I am going to use your own argument against you. Yes you are "an extremely small and pretty much negligible impact on the world". That would mean that the above calculation equates to near 0. But the potential for improvement is huge as you say yourself (I already know that you are disagreeing with this statement but it is true because you say most of you actions seem to be bad).

If you want to feel pain then do it that way. I am not trying to keep you from anything just inviting you to consider alternatives. Ultimately it's always your decision that you and only you have to live with (pun intended). You were not rude defensive. Just like correctly suspected I do not hate myself but I am still trying to understand. When I cut myself then it is purely for the emotional high in the moment, is it similar with you or do you also like to have cut yourself for the purpose of having hurt?

Seeing that you still have 2 messages to go I decided to yet again post on this thread.


-----------------------stop reading here-----------------------


This paragraph should have been deleted:
It's not arithmetic what you were talking about, it's more probabilistic and therefore statistics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areas_of_mathematics). Sure multiplication is used in statistics but equating the two would just be a misrepresentation of the matter.


to amplify the absurdity of our logical discussion of emotional issues I have written the following pseudo-code for you:
bool going_to_cbt = (expected_future_value() - future_consumption_of_resources()) < 0

hope you are doing well brother

 

[somedude123]

First of all I am glad that you are (still) talking to me. I wrote the blocking thing because I thought that maybe I could come across as rude. I didn't feel like you were rude at all.

The self-sacrifice is an interesting edge case. I would like to divide it into 2 categories.
Firstly the intuitive act like when a soldier jumps on a grenade to save his comrade. In this case I would contend that he is not doing an extensive calculation of all the outcomes, pros and cons for himself and other, rather he just feels like doing it so he does it. I would call this self-serving because he does the thing that HE feels like doing in the moment.
Secondly the more interesting case is the calculated act like the Japanese workers that went into Fukushima to minimize the negative effects of the catastrophe. I thought long about why they were doing what they were doing. I found that probably they were doing it mostly because of their great cultural sense of honor (as opposed to places like the US where such an act would occur much much rarer). Maybe they believed in the idea of karma. Maybe they also wanted the ones that remained like for example their children to live in a better world. The last reason of course being the most interesting. They certainly didn't feel bad about what they have done in the days that they had remaining. Sure it probably physically hurt like hell but they knew what they were getting themselves into. Chances are they didn't have any regrets. They did what THEY felt like they have to.
Everyone has free will and no one uses that to consciously act against their own self-interest. Even if you look into acts that have immediate great benefits to those around the actor and for himself it may even cost his life but he will never feel like he truly shouldn't do it. If you look one layer deeper any act has to come out of self-interest, because it has to otherwise the act would never have been realized.
It's fine if you disagree, I would have as well for the majority of my life but it's a somewhat sad truth.

To understand this easier you have to look at what the actors are FEELING not at what is the ultimate outcome. That being said I certainly am somewhere on the spectrum as well but oftentimes it helps to see things in a different way to what comes naturally to oneself.

I have to admit I don't really understand how you are feeling on the subject on your morality. Is it past or future actions that concern you?

You are speaking in a lot of absolute terms when I think you would agree that the future is not realized yet and therefore has to be talked about in a probabilistic manner. You say that you have no redeeming qualities but it is not about what you are right now but about what you can be in the future. If we accept this point of view that means that your expected future value is not 0 and therefore it matters a lot how little resources you are in fact consuming (expected_future_value - future_consumption_of_resources). I am going to use your own argument against you. Yes you are "an extremely small and pretty much negligible impact on the world". That would mean that the above calculation equates to near 0. But the potential for improvement is huge as you say yourself (I already know that you are disagreeing with this statement but it is true because you say most of you actions seem to be bad).

If you want to feel pain then do it that way. I am not trying to keep you from anything just inviting you to consider alternatives. Ultimately it's always your decision that you and only you have to live with (pun intended). You were not rude defensive. Just like correctly suspected I do not hate myself but I am still trying to understand. When I cut myself then it is purely for the emotional high in the moment, is it similar with you or do you also like to have cut yourself for the purpose of having hurt?

Seeing that you still have 2 messages to go I decided to yet again post on this thread.


-----------------------stop reading here-----------------------


This paragraph should have been deleted:
It's not arithmetic what you were talking about, it's more probabilistic and therefore statistics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areas_of_mathematics). Sure multiplication is used in statistics but equating the two would just be a misrepresentation of the matter.


to amplify the absurdity of our logical discussion of emotional issues I have written the following pseudo-code for you:
bool going_to_cbt = (expected_future_value() - future_consumption_of_resources()) < 0

hope you are doing well brother

well I guess neither of us felt we were rude to each other so glad we got that misunderstanding out of the way. I'm going to keep this brief since there isn't much to respond to.

we can agree to disagree on the "actions are ultimately self-serving" bit but I do feel like the examples you gave only strengthened my point if anything. They certainly didn't negate them. I agree wholeheartedly that yes the action comes out of self-interest, the person has to have some motivation to do said action in order to do it. However I think you're conflating self-interest and self-serving here. Yes someone would sacrifice themselves because they want to fulfill their own desire to see that person live, however sacrificing oneself is not in the best interest of the person doing the sacrificing, therefore I wouldn't call that self-serving. It may be the case that they want the person to live, and is acting to fulfill that desire, and sure you could argue that desire is in itself self-serving, after all if they didn't benefit from that person existing why would they save them? However, to put someone else's desire to live over their own desire to live, which in itself is an action, isn't self-serving in the least. They're putting someone else over themselves with no benefit to them at all, maybe you can argue that people that self-sacrifice hope they don't die so they can continue to benefit from both of their existences, and while that may be true, they're still putting someone's life over their own at least temporarily, so at the end of the day the action of putting someone else over themselves still occurred, even if that gets reverted back to them valuing their life more later on.

Concerning morality, it's a little bit of both.

In terms of probabilistics, perhaps I have potential to do good, but without concrete numbers, i have no clue the probability that I will continue to do good or bad, as I said my death is more of a precaution rather than a calculated move. It after all is the safest option, compare it a little to playing poker or the lottery, except you have no clue about the probabilities of winning or losing. Sure you could win, or lose, but you could also just not play at all, and avoid continually wasting money. The improvement can be huge but if the value is still negative then the improvement is irrelevant as far as im concerned.

Yes I do self-harm and it's the same reason as yours except to also inflict pain on myself.

The arithmetic i was referring to was the increment and decrement of my utility counter, not the probability of me doing good, though one is contingent on the other, so I can see why you made that mistake.

I'm not familiar with programming though from what i know is that any non-zero value will be considered true (correct me if I'm wrong) in boolean, so your code implies i will cbt if my value is greater than 0 which isn't what I've said or implied, so not sure how this demonstrates the absurdity of our discussion.

I've been doing fine bro, same to you.

 

[FohPah]

We latch onto whatever feeling drives us. Whatever helps us make sense of our experience. Whatever makes us feel *right* when we tell our story to ourselves. We like to feel right. We get passionate when we tell the story we believe in, and we like to feel passionate.

You haven't found that in loving or connecting with other people, but you have found it in self-hatred. The story of "I'm terrible" makes sense to you now, and you've become addicted to telling yourself that story. I've gone through that addiction, too. I feel like your post could have been written by me a couple years ago.

The thing is, hatred doesn't make sense. The concept of "deserving" doesn't make sense. Justice makes sense as a pragmatic way to promote social harmony and enable people to live among each other with some limited measure of peace and security. But nothing is inherently good or bad, and no one inherently deserves anything. We simply exist, and there's no deeper story to tell.

Allow yourself just to exist. Take some time to focus on the physical world that's real and concrete, instead of the world of your thoughts. If you find yourself passing judgment, just acknowledge the feeling behind it and don't make any more statements other than "I feel _____." Which is the only thing you can actually know.

 

[somedude123]

We latch onto whatever feeling drives us. Whatever helps us make sense of our experience. Whatever makes us feel *right* when we tell our story to ourselves. We like to feel right. We get passionate when we tell the story we believe in, and we like to feel passionate.

You haven't found that in loving or connecting with other people, but you have found it in self-hatred. The story of "I'm terrible" makes sense to you now, and you've become addicted to telling yourself that story. I've gone through that addiction, too. I feel like your post could have been written by me a couple years ago.

The thing is, hatred doesn't make sense. The concept of "deserving" doesn't make sense. Justice makes sense as a pragmatic way to promote social harmony and enable people to live among each other with some limited measure of peace and security. But nothing is inherently good or bad, and no one inherently deserves anything. We simply exist, and there's no deeper story to tell.

Allow yourself just to exist. Take some time to focus on the physical world that's real and concrete, instead of the world of your thoughts. If you find yourself passing judgment, just acknowledge the feeling behind it and don't make any more statements other than "I feel _____." Which is the only thing you can actually know.

Ok, so I'm having trouble understanding your first paragraph. What makes you feel "right" when you tell your story, how does that relate to what i think about myself, please elucidate.

You assume I've become addicted to telling myself that I'm terrible, this is a false assumption. All I've done is apply the metrics I use to judge people on myself. I'm not physically or psychologically dependent on telling myself how bad I am, the attempt to compare your past self to me relies upon a false interpretation of me.

The concepts of hatred and deserving make perfect sense to me, please elaborate on why you think they don't make sense. I never argued that anything is INHERENTLY good or bad, in fact I agree with you, so you bringing this up makes no sense. However I get the angle you're coming from, and sure nothing inherently matters, nothing inherently is anything, everything is subjective etc. But to draw the conclusion that we only simply exist and there is no story to tell is a complete non-sequitur. We all have motivations and we all have preferences right? Explain why nothing inherently being good or bad changes any of that. Explain how just because nothing inherently matters means there is no story to tell. As far as I'm concerned, nothing inherently meaning anything doesn't matter, because regardless us as humans will attribute our own subjective experiences and our own values and meanings to things no matter what. You didn't stop from writing your post just because there was no inherent good or bad, thus no motivation to post, did you? According to your line of reasoning, we should all just simply exist, even though that would be impossible according to you, after all we need to sustain ourselves right? well, if nothing is inherently good or bad, and if that supersedes my own subjective metrics of what is good and bad, then why sustain myself? what would be the motivation if not to do what i consider good, and avoid what i consider bad. If this is not your argument then please elaborate, otherwise it seems very contradictary.

as for your last statement, i'm not sure what your stance on external world skepticism is, i personally think i know a lot more than just what im feeling, however you may disagree, but then that'd contradict your earlier statement about the physical world being real and concrete. If you're arguing that the only thing i can know for sure about everything but the outside world is what im feeling, that's a philosophical position i can get behind but firmly disagree with. How do you know what we know for sure is the question here. For all we know we don't know how we're feeling either, we might not know a single thing about ourselves, but we could also know a lot more, none of these can really be proven though, so i'm not gonna raise too much of a stink about it.

 

[FohPah]

Picking apart every little thing in the most literal way possible, and trying to show all these contradictions, while missing the point, isn't helping you. But I'm sure that's not the first time you've heard that in your life.

The point you're missing is that you're blowing your dissatisfaction with yourself out of proportion.

So you're not who you want to be. You lack the virtues that you value in other people. I'll even take you at face value when you say you've done some "sadistic shit", i.e. you've intentionally caused other people to suffer. And you're disappointed in yourself for all of this. Okay. Disappointment is an appropriate thing to feel in response to something not being what you want it to be.

But so what?

You say you lack empathy, right? And that's a problem? Is it not also a problem that you lack empathy for yourself? You're not treating yourself like the vulnerable, emotional, confused monkey that you are, that we all are. You're putting yourself on trial where you're the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Monkeys don't belong on trial.

Beating yourself up is simply you being sadistic toward yourself. It doesn't do anyone any good. It's not righting any wrongs. It's not what you deserve. And if you think *anyone* deserves to suffer, then that sentiment comes from a lack of empathy, which you admit is a problem.

So why do you beat yourself up? Like I said, it's an addiction. The fact that you don't measure up to your own standard is not, in itself, the addiction. It's the fact that you keep *repeating* it to yourself, and you hurt yourself, which validates your sentiment that you deserve to be hurt, which makes you look forward to the next time you get hurt.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

@somedude123

Just re-reading your OP and the whole thread.

I think the OP was like you said in the intro, getting things off your chest.

I am not you, so I cannot define you or your inner experience. You are the only person who can do that, and with every comment you've made on this thread, it seems that you are very clear about how you define yourself and what you have determined to do, both to and for yourself. So I just wanted to acknowledge that, and you.

I wish for your happiness and well-being, and I honor your right to determine for yourself what they look like and how to go about achieving them. I do not wish self-hatred on you, but it's not mine to fix and you didn't put it on anyone to do so, therefore I won't try.

Ultimately, I can only ascertain from your post that you wanted to be heard, and so I'm letting you know that I listened, and that I have compassion and respect for you as a fellow human.

 

[somedude123]

Picking apart every little thing in the most literal way possible, and trying to show all these contradictions, while missing the point, isn't helping you. But I'm sure that's not the first time you've heard that in your life.

The point you're missing is that you're blowing your dissatisfaction with yourself out of proportion.

So you're not who you want to be. You lack the virtues that you value in other people. I'll even take you at face value when you say you've done some "sadistic shit", i.e. you've intentionally caused other people to suffer. And you're disappointed in yourself for all of this. Okay. Disappointment is an appropriate thing to feel in response to something not being what you want it to be.

But so what?

You say you lack empathy, right? And that's a problem? Is it not also a problem that you lack empathy for yourself? You're not treating yourself like the vulnerable, emotional, confused monkey that you are, that we all are. You're putting yourself on trial where you're the judge, the jury, and the executioner. Monkeys don't belong on trial.

Beating yourself up is simply you being sadistic toward yourself. It doesn't do anyone any good. It's not righting any wrongs. It's not what you deserve. And if you think *anyone* deserves to suffer, then that sentiment comes from a lack of empathy, which you admit is a problem.

So why do you beat yourself up? Like I said, it's an addiction. The fact that you don't measure up to your own standard is not, in itself, the addiction. It's the fact that you keep *repeating* it to yourself, and you hurt yourself, which validates your sentiment that you deserve to be hurt, which makes you look forward to the next time you get hurt.

If I miss the point, then clarify said point, shouldn't be too difficult. I want help but obviously i can't just blindly agree with everything someone suggests. If there are points of contention, we can work to resolve that.

You could've just explicitly stated that, and then there would be some understanding, not going on about the inherency of good and bad. Which has nothing to do with my hatred towards myself.

it's not just disappointment but yes I do feel disappointment in myself for a lot of things.

So what? I'll tell you what. Me being who I am means a great deal to me, that's what.

Yes lacking empathy is a huge problem, also you're conflating sympathy with empathy, those are different things. I'm already experiencing my own emotions and aware of my own emotions, I know what I'm going through, because I'm me, not quite certain how you can "empathize" with someone whose emotions you are experiencing literally directly, aka yourself.
I do belong on trial, everyone does, even if they didn't it would still happen regardless. Deny it or not we all judge things, even if we try not to, opinions can and will be formed for just about anything we're cognitively aware of.

Beating myself up is being masochistic if anything, but it's not that I relish in my own pain, so neither terms apply here. It does do good, as i've already pointed out, i prevent my consumption of resources as well as prevent any future harm i may cause. It's not what I deserve? That's your opinion formed using your own metrics, if you can convince me to adopt your point of view i might consider otherwise. You've never acted on vengeance or anger? well good on you for being a pacifist i guess, but you can still have empathy while wanting those who have wronged you to suffer.

That's not what an addiction is. I'm not addicted to hurting or hating myself. It's something I simply do, I'm perfectly capable of not hurting or hating myself, however there would have to be a dramatic shift in my worldview to elicit that change. I can be convinced, someone just needs to do a better job of convincing, of course you're not obligated to help so give up any time you like, plenty already have given up on me, you wouldn't be the first.

@somedude123

Just re-reading your OP and the whole thread.

I think the OP was like you said in the intro, getting things off your chest.

I am not you, so I cannot define you or your inner experience. You are the only person who can do that, and with every comment you've made on this thread, it seems that you are very clear about how you define yourself and what you have determined to do, both to and for yourself. So I just wanted to acknowledge that, and you.

I wish for your happiness and well-being, and I honor your right to determine for yourself what they look like and how to go about achieving them. I do not wish self-hatred on you, but it's not mine to fix and you didn't put it on anyone to do so, therefore I won't try.

Ultimately, I can only ascertain from your post that you wanted to be heard, and so I'm letting you know that I listened, and that I have compassion and respect for you as a fellow human.

thank you, I appreciate the kind words and I appreciate you listening. Even though I'm more of a listener myself and rarely speak my mind and would rather listen to others, when I do talk i do expect to be treated the same way, and throughout my life I've been surrounded by people who like the sound of their own voice, and would rather talk their head off, than listen and learn from others. So even though you had little to say, i still appreciate you taking the time to read and properly digest what i've typed.

 

[FohPah]

Why should someone suffer?

I get that you *want* to see someone suffer. But what makes it *right*?

 

[somedude123]

Why should someone suffer?

I get that you *want* to see someone suffer. But what makes it *right*?

If someone has wronged me, or i deem them a bad person, they should suffer.

If we're talking right in a moral sense, nothing really makes it right, per se, except if causing someone to suffer would prevent an even greater suffering from happening to that person or other people in the future. Of course suffering is hard to quantify, but think about it in terms of the trolley problem, either you pull the lever and 1 person dies, or don't do anything and 5 people die, it would be right to pull the lever, in my opinion, so in order to prevent 5 people from suffering or dying, you cause 1 person to suffer. However I'm not concerned with what makes my suffering right, just that I want to suffer. My wanting to die though, as explained earlier, would be right, at least according to my morals, as if I die i will cause less people to suffer, than if I were to live. Of course I could theoretically justify my suffering, if say, everytime I do something bad, i punish myself, thus conditioning myself to not do bad things to other people, however we both know that's not what is going on here. And like I've stated earlier I have trouble aligning my actions with my morals, instead aligning them with my wants. Of course any help with this is appreciated.

 

[GoodPersonEffed]

Of course I could theoretically justify my suffering, if say, everytime I do something bad, i punish myself, thus conditioning myself to not do bad things to other people, however we both know that's not what is going on here. And like I've stated earlier I have trouble aligning my actions with my morals, instead aligning them with my wants. Of course any help with this is appreciated.

It's hard to heal or grow in a place of condemnation. Wouldn't it be more motivating and effective to praise and reward yourself for aligning your actions with your morals? That would also have a cumulative effect of respecting, even liking, yourself rather than hating yourself.

 

[somedude123]

It's hard to heal or grow in a place of condemnation. Wouldn't it be more motivating and effective to praise and reward yourself for aligning your actions with your morals? That would also have a cumulative effect of respecting, even liking, yourself rather than hating yourself.

Actually quite the contrary, negative reinforcement is shown to be far more effective than positive reinforcement. I don't want to like myself, I want to just not hate myself, but I think that would require me changing how I think, not just rewarding myself, which i fail to see how I would be motivated to do. Intuitively, liking myself would be the catalyst into wanting to reward myself, not the other way around.

 

[FohPah]

Imagine a monkey that acts a bit selfishly and doesn't contribute to the welfare of the group. Maybe it even hurt some other monkeys in the past. But the worst that happens is that it makes a very slightly negative impact on the group's welfare instead of the very slightly positive impact it otherwise would have had. This monkey's existence makes little difference either way. And the other monkeys tolerate it just fine, even if they don't get along especially well.

Would you want to see that monkey tortured as punishment?

What makes you different from that monkey? Why do you take yourself so seriously?

 

[somedude123]

Imagine a monkey that acts a bit selfishly and doesn't contribute to the welfare of the group. Maybe it even hurt some other monkeys in the past. But the worst that happens is that it makes a very slightly negative impact on the group's welfare instead of the very slightly positive impact it otherwise would have had. This monkey's existence makes little difference either way. And the other monkeys tolerate it just fine, even if they don't get along especially well.

Would you want to see that monkey tortured as punishment?

What makes you different from that monkey? Why do you take yourself so seriously?

Look dude, I know you mean well, but you keep misunderstanding what I'm saying and make these terrible analogies and points that don't have anything to do with what I'm talking about, and make no point whatsoever. Don't understate who I am, I don't just make a slightly negative impact, I've impacted lives of those who are around me quite significantly. the only people who can tolerate me are those who don't know me. Even people who I haven't hurt or haven't revealed my true nature to, like friends I've met online, eventually grow tired of me, and start to get frustrated over me simply being me, to the point where I'm described as insufferable, so to say I can be tolerated is another baseless assertion made without knowing hardly anything about me. Again, I know you mean well, but I think it's best to agree to disagree, and stop our discussion here, as honestly dealing with your wild metaphors and red herrings just wastes my time and induces a headache.

 

[FohPah]

Thanks for giving us an interesting discussion topic, anyway. It helped me clarify some things I've been thinking about recently. Sorry if you thought this was all about you.

BTW, what happens when you interact with people who are like-minded? Not everyone is for everyone, but I'm curious what kind of rapport you build with people who are argumentative like you and who don't take things personally. Did you ever join a debate club or something similar?

 

[somedude123]

Please don't. I'm not very knowledgeable about autism and what you may have experienced, but I am certain you can find a silver lining. You say that you don't feel empathy; I don't know if this is changeable, but I do know that even without empathy, you can do great things. I think you could be a great surgeon or detective; you won't be clouded by emotions when you perform your job. There are also a ton of jobs that don't require empathy, from engineers to programmers to scientists to bakers. In addition, if you fear you may do something immoral, you can learn to develop a sense of morality, even if it doesn't come naturally. Read some moral philosophy books or watch some videos. Your can't change the past, but you can do better moving forward.

"You say that you don't feel empathy; I don't know if this is changeable, but I do know that even without empathy, you can do great things."

It actually is, studies have shown that MDMA (commonly known as ectsasy) can improve the recipient's ability to empathize, as well as have a better overall mood in general. the FDA has allowed for some psychiatrists to prescribe it for autism, ptsd, anxiety, etc. However I've had a very hard time finding a psychiatrist in my local area that's accepting new patients, and I'm not sure if I have the patience to put up with this for any extended length of time, looking into places and then wasting my time, only worsens my mood and stresses me out. As far as doing great things without empathy, I'm not going to repeat myself again: I simply want to not do bad things, however this is hard for me, there should be no further misunderstanding beyond this point, got it?

"I think you could be a great surgeon or detective; you won't be clouded by emotions when you perform your job. There are also a ton of jobs that don't require empathy, from engineers to programmers to scientists to bakers."

I could be a lot of things, that's irrelevant to my current situation though. While I love science, I'm more into music and art, none of those other jobs interest me.

"In addition, if you fear you may do something immoral, you can learn to develop a sense of morality, even if it doesn't come naturally. Read some moral philosophy books or watch some videos. Your can't change the past, but you can do better moving forward"

I don't fear that I'll do something immoral, I know I will and I hate it, but I don't fear it. I already have a sense of morality, someone hasn't been paying attention it looks like. But I'll go ahead and repeat myself for the umpteenth time: my problem isn't my morality, it's my actions reflecting my wants, instead of my morals. I'm super into philosophy already and have had my morals shaped from a lot of what I've read, watched, and conversed with other people.
I can't do better moving forward, I lack the motivation to really do so, as I've already stated. As with the guy above, I know you mean well, but you're not gonna give accurate/helpful advice if you assume things about me that aren't true, and continue to misunderstand what I'm saying, so my suggestion would be this: slow down a little, take your time to digest what you're reading, before formulating a response, that would be beneficial for both of us and would minimize the time wasted on misconceptions. TIA.

Thanks for giving us an interesting discussion topic, anyway. It helped me clarify some things I've been thinking about recently. Sorry if you thought this was all about you.

BTW, what happens when you interact with people who are like-minded? Not everyone is for everyone, but I'm curious what kind of rapport you build with people who are argumentative like you and who don't take things personally. Did you ever join a debate club or something similar?

Well no I never thought this was ALL about me, either way that's cool that you got something out of it, wish I could say the same though. I wouldn't consider myself argumentative, just not submissive and easy to push around, I like receiving other's thoughts and opinions, however I'm not going to blindly agree on everything, I guess I just like to see if I'm wrong first before assuming someone else is right. Of course I am biased, so I'm not going to disagree on your perception of me. I've never joined a debate club, though I've watched a lot of debates so I guess you can say it is something I enjoy. I feel like if I did though it would not pan out well, as I try to remain unbiased and objective as I can. And from what I can tell, some people simply can't handle the truth, then they get emotional and start dropping fallacies left and right, then once you point them out and correct them, they really get flustered, and the discussion ends up being unproductive. Not all debates are like this, but sometimes people just value their ego more than the truth.